Yes, say Bush advisers after hearing that Steve Forbes
has begun testing possible lines of attack against Bush in
a poll of Iowa voters. They charge that Forbes is
preparing negative and erroneous ads against Bush.

The Forbes camp shot back that Bush was making the
charge to create a diversion from the substantive issues
of the campaign. They will not, they say, be deterred
from factually challenging Bush on the record.

Forbes' respectable second-place showing in the Iowa
straw poll has unquestionably whetted his appetite for
narrowing the GOP contest to a two-man race. So where
does he go from here?

It's still too early to conclude that other candidates, such
as Dole and Bauer, will not be players for a while, but the
Bush and Forbes money give them an ever-increasing
advantage as the months roll on.

Regardless of whether the Forbes votes are indicative of
grass-roots support, he can make himself a perpetual
thorn in W's side. The decisions he now makes as to how
to proceed may set the tone for the rest of the campaign.

Bush has been criticized by GOP conservatives for failing
to articulate specific policy proposals. His alleged failure
to do so fuels their suspicions that he doesn't want us to
know where he stands until he's secured a surer lock on
the nomination.

Apart from whether this criticism is fair, sooner or later
Bush will have to be more specific on the issues and
other questions.

Forbes may have a great deal to say about whether it will
be sooner or later.

Among the GOP front-runners, no one has more clearly
articulated the conservative message than Forbes has.
Forbes spokesman Greg Mueller said, "We are clear and
away the issues candidate. We've got the best candidate
who's got the deepest and broadest reach."

Indeed, the campaign appears to be shaping up into a cat
and mouse game between Bush and Forbes with Bush
wanting to avoid specifics as long as possible, hoping to
conserve his formidable war-chest. Forbes, on the other
hand, believes that by flushing out Bush he will either
damage him enough with the conservative base to make
this a real contest or nudge Bush farther to the right.

Even if Forbes is not ultimately deemed electable enough
to mount a credible challenge to Bush, his hammering
home of the message can only be good for the cause.

But based on the 1996 campaign, Bush aides fear that
Forbes may go farther than that.

"We had certainly hoped we could take Steve Forbes at
his word that he would not engage in the trash ball politics
of ugly attack ads that he did in 1996," said Bush
spokeswoman Mindy Tucker. "He said he won't, but this
is the same procedure he went through in 1996 before he
launched a series of attack ads on Bob Dole."

Forbes denies negative campaigning and insists that
highlighting Bush's record and positions on the issues is
what campaigns are all about. And he's correct, so long
as he fairly characterizes Bush's record and positions.

It's true that part of Bush's popularity is attributable to his
presumed electability by the Republican masses and
others who want to remove the Clinton stench from
American politics. Such starvation for victory has
afforded him the short-term luxury of not being as
specific as his critics are demanding.

But Bush needs to appreciate the depth of the legitimate
frustration among the conservative wing of the party.
And he needs to address it. They are outraged at
perceived betrayals and broken promises of the
Republican Congress, and even more so at the
double-speaking, word-parsing chicanery of Bill Clinton.

In other times, a clear front-runner may be able to coast
longer in the comfort of generalities. Following seven
years of Clinton linguistics however, the public, and
especially the right, has no more tolerance for indirection
in communication.

Gov. Bush would be well advised to publicly unveil his
specific conservative positions soon. By doing so, he may
avert more third party defections and squelch the
momentum of conservative challengers Forbes and
Bauer.

Bush must not make the mistake that other Republican
politicians have made of believing that the real strength of
the party is in the center. The GOP remains markedly
conservative and the sooner Bush convinces the base of
his conservative bona fides the better for his campaign
and the
country.

JWR contributor
David Limbaugh
is an
attorney
practicing in
Cape Girardeau,
Missouri,
and a
political
analyst
and
commentator. Send your comments to him by clicking here.